Monthly Archives: August 1999

All of a sudden it’s the other side of winter. 5.30 in the afternoon and the sun’s still up. On the downside, those same golden rays stream through my bedroom window by about 7am, illuminating the blood in my eyelids. Literally, I see red.

After putting it off fer months, I’m finally painting my walls. Over the weekend, the first one… grey. No, nowt an ode to winter – there’s a bigger plan afoot. If the weather stays clement over the next week, two more walls will succumb to my trusty (rusty) roller. This time… orange. Yes, the very colours of Future2000™ come to life. Incidentally the official names of these colours are “sardine” and “turmeric”. Tasty.

And so to celebrate, a free coffee table for all valued customers. Print! Cut! Fold! Fun fer everyone!

Incidentally, on the laminated plasticwood surface, a copy of the magazine “Speak”, my favourite magazine of the last many months. Bursting with vernacular fun, Chris Ware comics and everything and nothing in particular. And now it is n’more. One of the things that made reading (or perusing) “Speak” such an excellent experience was the absence of ads, or rather, the graceful ebb and flow from page to page uninterrupted by generic cosmetic or tryhard cigarette ads.

Tragically the latest issue contains a bitter bitter diatribe of an editorial (another reason I like “Speak” is that the editorial is never just three paragraphs summarising the contents page) heralding the impending demise of the magazine. Something about what happens to publishers when they are “not inclined to help merchandise product or design editorial to be more compatible with advertiser’s campaigns; or when he is not inclined to pay public relations companies… instead of writers.”

Sigh.

Just what we don’t need right now, especially when magazines with names like “Gear” and “Stuff” spring up, with no other purpose than to tell you what you can spend your money on. It sucks! It all sucks!

Anyway (and believe me – in the light of that last paragraph, the irony of this statement is so clear to me), go out and buy “Speak” because in a couple of issues it’ll be extinct, and then we’ll see who’s sorry.

Well, ok. Probably not you.

The speak website is nowt a patch on the real deal (web:0, print:1 – woohoo!), but drop by anyway eh?

- – -before i had a “blog”, i used to write a sporadically updated letter on the front page of my website. this is one of them. i am consolidating it into these archives, because i can.

Come on in. And excuse the mess. Yeah, it’s lookin’ pretty much the same – been kinda busy the last few weeks, getting back into work after that last vacation. Y’know…

Oh I went to Chicago to see my sister graduate. Yeah [haha] any excuse. Um and we found a cheap airfare on the ‘net so we made a little post-Grunge pilgrimage to Seattle. No, it was really good. All sunny and clean-smelling. But y’know what? That weekend Eddie Vedder was playing the Tibetan Freedom Concert in Chicago – actually, Wisconsin – so I kinda missed out on a random Vedder sighting.

Yeah, dem’s the breaks.

Um look, I’m still in the middle of tidying up a few bits of work, so d’ya just wanna hang out here for a while? I’ll have something to show you real soon. Oh and there’s some milk and chocolate cookies over there… yeah I made them. No, really! [haha] Just avoid the black ones ok?

- – -before i had a “blog”, i used to write a sporadically updated letter on the front page of my website. this is one of them. i am consolidating it into these archives, because i can.